The headline of this blog entry is a test run of a potential 2012 ad, and is based on one that was used to help sweep England’s conservative party (the Tories) to power in the recent parliamentary elections.  It also makes a nice segue into my topic — the meeting that the Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition’ ^[1]s team of co-founders had with a group of young European diplomatic/bureaucratic types.  It was a rather eye-opening experience, which lead to several interesting exchanges.

Dawn Wildman, Sarah Bond and I co-founded our citizen activist group in February 2009.  Recently, Mark Sullivan and Erika Ginsberg of the State Department-sponsored Citizen Diplomacy Council of San Diego set up a meeting  of “Young European Leaders” with us (representing the area’s very active Tea Party group).  It seems these 20-something future politicos (from Poland, Portugal, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, Italy, Austria, Hungary and Turkey) wanted to know all about this new American movement.

Wildman and Bond explained the history of Tea Parties, from their current inception as an expression of public discontent at the manner in which the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate ignored protests to rush through the Toxic Assent Relief Program (TARP) and “Stimulus Package.”  Wildman referred to the movement as an “awakening,” and highlighted the fact that citizens across the country are becoming more active in contacting their representatives and learning the facts about legislation for themselves.  Bond described the Tea Party’s leaderless structure and our group’s California activities.  I described the use of the Internet, Facebook, Twitter and forums for citizen networking, which is a key element of all the successes that Tea Party groups have had nationwide in the past year.

One of the best questions came from Anka Grzywacz of Poland’s Democratic Left Alliance.  Before the meeting, I was able to express sympathy for the loss of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 96 other important officials in last month’s plane crash near Katyn.  She was touched, as her boss was among those killed in this tragedy.  She asked who was behind the Arizona BUY-cott ^[4] that our group is promoting; many in the audience seemed intrigued that citizens would use money as a means of supporting leaders and legislation we like.

More challenging was the insinuation of Pedro Nuno Santa, a Portuguese economist, that high taxes were absolutely no problem. He used as an example his country of Portugal, indicating he would rather be born a poor European than rich anywhere else.  What recommended Portugal most is the fact that there are “fine schools” and that there are “no homeless.”

Santa seemed stunned when I shot back that “a government big enough to give you what you want is one big enough to take all you have,” as has been demonstrated many times in countries with highly centralized, socialist governments.  Such a template does not recommend itself well to liberty-minded Americans.  And while a highly-educated bureaucrat such as Santa might find Portuguese life lush, I am thinking that a business owner in that country, or a young person with fewer privileges, might have real struggles.  A New York Times ^[5] piece on Portugal’s troubled economy shows that Portuguese businessmen are deeply concerned; Portugal’s debt is expected to rise to 85 percent of gross domestic product because of rising unemployment and government spending on infrastructure projects.

Frankly, after talking with these young European leaders, I am genuinely concerned about the extreme level of indoctrination and theory, and the limited exposure to real-life business experience they have received.  Many seemed surprise when I detailed how I was trimming my business expenditures and expansion plans to minimize my tax exposure — some obviously had failed to see that tax increases do not automatically translate to government revenue gains.

One of the more amusing moments came when Shane Kelly, of an Irish public affairs firm, waxed poetic about Ireland’s free college tuition.  I informed Kelly that the college isn’t free; rather, it is being borne by the blood, sweat and tears of Ireland’s producers.  And, quite frankly, I am finding that the highly bureaucratized and non-diverse environment of today’s university means that a college degree is worth much less today (despites its escalating cost) than in my parent’s generation and is no longer a guarantee of individual economic prosperity.

The Eastern European block and the charming Turkish representatives were nodding at our group’s capitalism and individual-oriented outlooks.  They asked many solid questions about the Tea Party movement, and were interested to note that we are not a Third Party, that we are not really interested in targeting President Obama, and that we number Democrats (such as myself) as well as Republicans in our number.  The most significant question we fielded was if we were “the average Tea Partier?”  Yes, it seems many Tea Party groups are lead by working mothers such our group of co-founders.

Mothers’ concerns for their children’s futures lead to a conservative win in England.  Equally worried American mothers and others will have a chance to change our country’s direction this November.  With unrest in Greece and debt-expanding spending tainting the sovereign currencies throughout Europe, it seems these young European leaders may eventually face Tea Parties in their countries as well.

Leslie Eastman runs an environmental health and safety consulting firm, Eastman Enterprises, and is a founding member of the grassroots organization, Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition.She can be reached at mutnodjmetlpe(a)gmail.com